Truck Maker Volvo To Build Battery Modules Plant In Belgium

Swedish truck maker Volvo Group said on Wednesday its plant in Ghent in Belgium would start to produce battery modules in 2025.

“The investment decision to install battery module manufacturing capacity in Ghent is another important step for the Volvo Group to shape its future value chain for battery systems,” it said in a statement.

The new manufacturing line would be able to use battery cells both from partners and from a planned battery cell plant in Sweden, Volvo Group said.

It said the process to establish it had started, and that the investment frame for the first step of module manufacturing was 75 million euros ($75.09 million). It did not give a figure for the full investment.

The new 12,000 square metre facility would be almost fully automated, it said.

Volvo Group has an ambition that at least 35% of vehicles sold will be electric by 2030. Its plant in Gothenburg in Sweden builds heavy-duty electric trucks, and the Ghent truck factory will start doing so too next year.

(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom, editing by Stine Jacobsen, additional editing by Mae Matthews)